Posts tagged ‘miracles’

One of the obscure claims by those who have been influenced by the postmodern tradition is the claim that history is not objective–at least, it cannot be objectively known. History can and is only reported from a bias perspective, thus it cannot be trusted as truly objective. It’s along the line of thought that winners write history.

According to Rudolf Bultmann, God is the Totaliter Aliter (Wholly Other), there are no points of contact between us and him. God is, but we cannot know him objectively. God is hidden and thus neither God nor his actions are open to verification. This world is a closed system of cause and effect; we can never find God by empirical processes. There are no breaks in the links of causation; thus, there are no miracles. No event can ever be ascribed to God; all are natural causes. There is an infinite qualitative difference between God and the world, which makes it impossible for God to objectively act in the world. Paradoxically, the hidden God reaches down to finite humanity and reaches himself (via the kerygma). Miracles would be intrusions of God into the natural realm.

The Enlightenment restricted knowledge to experience and the phenomenal. Post-Enlightenment thought sought to progress in knowledge while considering the advances the Enlightenment had made. The Christian faith attempted to develop a new relationship between transcendence and immanence. Transcendence has to do with God’s being self-sufficient and beyond or above the universe. Immanence corresponds with God being present and active in creation, intimately involved in human history. Newtonian physics did not permit God to be immanent in the universe. This was brought into light by the unmistakable success of science.[1]

David Hume was an 18th century skeptic from Scotland who is considered an authority by many philosophers in challenging miracles. Consider his take in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience as can be imagined… It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed, in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation.

Hume’s idea of “extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence” is pictured in a scale. On one side is full proof and the other side is the evidence from all people in all the ages for the regularity of the laws of nature, which also amounts to full proof. Thus, proof stands against proof and does not incline in either direction, the wise man cannot hold to a miracle with any degree of certainty. According to Hume, miracles are violations of the “laws of nature” that “firm and unalterable” experience has solidly established. Only a superior testimony of experience may override this proposition, but, unfortunately, there cannot be such a testimony, for if there were, miracles would no longer merit their name.

The claim is that all religions have their miracles, so what makes Christianity’s miracles true and other religions’ false?

Not all religious teach miracles and the Jewish-Christian religions are the only traditions that claim to prove its teachings through miracles.

In all cases of miracles, no miracles have the historical evidence like the gospel miracles.

Christianity’s miracles are religiously significant. Jesus’ miracles occurred at the climax of his unparalleled life.

Religio-historical context distinguishes miracles from physical anomalies. When a scientific anomaly occurs it is usually assumed that some unknown natural factors are interfering, so that the law is neither violated nor revised.

Sociologist Ernst Troelstsch’s objection to miracles: the principle of historical analogy. In essence this principle states the historian has no right to accept as historical fact the account of a past event for which he has no analogy in the present. For example, if one were to read of a great battle in ancient times in which one army massacres another without suffering a single casualty itself, one would be suspect of its authenticity. To quote Troelstsch, “God never does miracles today, at least I’ve never seen one. Therefore, I have no reason to believe that he did them in the past.”

General summary of his theology: Bultmann’s theology is quite faceted but for this Theology Thursday I’m just going to focus on his view on miracles. The early and mid 20th century theologian Rudolph Bultmann argued that “man’s knowledge and mastery of the world have advanced to such an extent through science and technology that it is no longer possible for anyone seriously to hold the New Testament view of the world… the modern conception of human nature as a self-subsistent unity immune from the interference of supernatural powers must take its place.” According to Bultmann God is the Wholly Other, there are no points of contact between us and him. God is, but we cannot know him objectively. God is hidden and thus neither God nor his actions are open to verification. This world is a closed system of cause and effect; we can never find God by empirical processes. There are no breaks in the links of causation; thus, there are no miracles. No event can ever be ascribed to God; all are natural causes. There is an infinite qualitative difference between God and the world, which makes it impossible for God to objectively act in the world. Paradoxically, the hidden God reaches down to finite humanity and reaches himself (via the kerygma). Miracles would be intrusions of God into the natural realm.

The Enlightenment restricted knowledge to experience and the phenomenal. Post-Enlightenment thought sought to progress in knowledge while considering the advances the Enlightenment had made. The Christian faith attempted to develop a new relationship between transcendence and immanence. Transcendence has to do with God’s being self-sufficient and beyond or above the universe. Immanence corresponds with God being present and active in creation, intimately involved in human history. Newtonian physics did not permit God to be immanent in the universe. This came into question was brought into light by the unmistakable success of science.[1]

Einstein’s GTR permitted the possibility that God interacts with the created order without interrupting the physical cause and effect system.[2] The most important task for scientific theologians was how to avoid de facto deism—not merely by calling it unorthodox and expressing a dislike for the Newtonian theistic system, but by actually showing why it is an unnecessary conclusion drawn from science. Christian theologians must be in the position to say what they mean by God’s activity in the world and how God’s activity can be consistent with the belief that God has created a finite order with a goodness and perfection of its own.[3]

Why must the possibility of miracles be so foundational? Because it’s the crux of the gospel message, the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus did not rise from the dead then our faith is in vain (1 Cor. 15.17).

Undoubtedly, one of the major stumbling blocks to becoming a Christian for many people today is that Christianity is a religion of miracles. It asserts that God became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, being born of a virgin, that he performed various miracles, exorcised demonic beings, and that, having died by crucifixion, he rose from the dead. But the problem is that these sorts of miraculous events seem to belong to a worldview foreign to modern man—a pre-scientific, superstitious worldview belonging to the ancient and Middle Ages.[1]

Miracledef.: A divine intervention into, or an interruption of, the regular course of the world that produces a purposeful but unusual event that would not have occurred otherwise.

Wondrous natural events do not qualify as miracles.

Supernatural events that do not interrupt the regular course of the world do not qualify as miracles.

“Laws of Nature” are not fixed laws; they are descriptive, not prescriptive.

Miracles are not violations of laws of causality, but are simply unusually effects produced by the introduction of a supernatural cause.

David Hume was an 18th century skeptic from Scotland who is considered an authority by many philosophers in challenging miracles. Consider his take in An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding,

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience as can be imagined… It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed, in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation.

Hume’s idea of “extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence” is pictured in a scale. On one side is full proof and the other side is the evidence from all people in all the ages for the regularity of the laws of nature, which also amounts to full proof. Thus, proof stands against proof and does not incline in either direction, the wise man cannot hold to a miracle with any degree of certainty. According to Hume, miracles are violations of the “laws of nature” that “firm and unalterable” experience has solidly established.[2] Only a superior testimony of experience may override this proposition, but, unfortunately, there cannot be such a testimony, for if there were, miracles would no longer merit their name.[3] For clarification:

Hume is not arguing that miracles are impossible, just that there can never be enough evidence to believe in them.

The entire fund of human experience has established the laws of nature and one would need a greater amount of evidence than all of mankind’s experience to believe in miracles.

Hume’s argument is based on probability: It will always be more probable that a person will be in error (deceiving or being deceived) than an entire experience of mankind is wrong.

Keeping Hume’s criteria and experiential background information in the back of your mind, with respects to the resurrection, let’s consider witness credibility. What about the contention that the disciples were guilty of fraud?

Easter is not primarily a comfort, but a challenge. Its message is either the supreme fact in history or else a gigantic hoax… If it is true, then it is the supreme fact of history; and to fail to adjust one’s life to its implications means irreparable loss. But if it is not true, if Christ be not risen, then the whole of Christianity is a fraud, foisted on the world by a company of consummate liars, or, at best, deluded simpletons. St. Paul himself realized this when he wrote: If Christ be not risen, then our preaching is meaningless, and your faith worthless. More, we are found to be false witnesses. [4]

What about the cause of the rise of Christianity?

If the coming into existence of the Nazarenes, a phenomenon undeniably attested by the New Testament, rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of the Resurrection, what does the secular historian propose to stop it up with? … the birth and rapid rise of the Christian Church… remain an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the Church itself. [5]

So, how should we answer the Humean objection?

Hume begs the question: “Firm and unalterable experience”; He assumes that miracles have never occurred in order to prove that miracles have never occurred. CS Lewis notes,

“Now of course we must agree with Hume that if there is absolutely ‘uniform experience’ against miracles, if in other words they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all the reports of them are false. And we can know all the reports to be false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact we are arguing in a circle.”[6]

Miracles appear as sense perception and therefore can be supported by testimony; if miracles are possible then claims should be investigated rather than just ruled out a priori.

How about a more scientific challenge? Early and mid 20th century theologian Rudolph Bultmann argues that “man’s knowledge and mastery of the world have advanced to such an extent through science and technology that it is no longer possible for anyone seriously to hold the New Testament view of the world… the modern conception of human nature as a self-subsistent unity immune from the interference of supernatural powers must take its place.” According to Bultmann God is the Wholly Other, there are no points of contact between us and him. God is, but we cannot know him objectively. God is hidden and thus neither God nor his actions are open to verification. This world is a closed system of cause and effect; we can never find God by empirical processes. There are no breaks in the links of causation; thus, there are no miracles. No event can ever be ascribed to God; all are natural causes. There is an infinite qualitative difference between God and the world, which makes it impossible for God to objectively act in the world. Paradoxically, the hidden God reaches down to finite humanity and reaches himself (via the kerygma). Miracles would be intrusions of God into the natural realm.

What is quite interesting about Bultmann is that he was a contemporary with the rise of Einsteinian physics and relativity. Bultmann was still shaping his theology and philosophy to a Newtonian system. It’s not so much that God wouldn’t cause miracles; rather, it’s that he can’t. It would be morally wrong if he interfered with his creation.

How should we respond to objections based on science?

The closed-universe view, which says that the universe contains all of reality, is now being either questions or flat-out rejected by many scientists. Many cosmologists are adopting the view of the multiverse, which is an open-system. This is quite interesting, though I’m not using it argumentatively, if God were to create, wouldn’t you expect him to create an open-system such as the multiverse given is infinite creativity?

How about a historical challenge? Sociologist Ernst Troelstsch’s objection to miracles: the principle of historical analogy. In essence this principle states the historian has no right to accept as historical fact the account of a past event for which he has no analogy in the present. For example, if one were to read of a great battle in ancient times in which one army massacres another without suffering a single casualty itself, one would be suspect of its authenticity. To quote Troelstsch, “God never does miracles today, at least I’ve never seen one. Therefore, I have no reason to believe that he did them in the past.”

Responding to Troelstsch’s historical challenge:

There are positive reasons to believe that the miraculous may be occurring today. There is a growing awareness in the world of the paranormal—events that cannot be explained by natural causes. (E.g. near death experiences).

It is impossible to argue that miracles do not occur merely because one has not experienced a miracle. Miracles may be occurring beyond the scope of one’s awareness. This is confusing an epistemological issue [knowledge based] with an ontological issue [a nature of being].

There is no reason a priori to reject the testimony of others who have experienced the miraculous. As stated above, while one may be justified in requiring evidence for miracle claims, miracles are objective events that can be verified like any other event.

How about multireligious miracles? The claim is that all religions have their miracles, so what makes Christianity’s miracles true and other religions’ false?

Not all religious teach miracles and the Jewish-Christian religions are the only traditions that claim to prove its teachings through miracles.

In all cases of miracles, no miracles have the historical evidence like the gospel miracles.

Christianity’s miracles are religiously significant. Jesus’ miracles occurred at the climax of his unparalleled life.

Religio-historical context distinguishes miracles from physical anomalies. When a scientific anomaly occurs it is usually assumed that some unknown natural factors are interfering, so that the law is neither violated nor revised.

It has been shown that miracles are not irrational, unscientific, or non-historical. They can be rationally shown to be possible, are completely compatible with science, and because they are events in history, can be argued as historically have taken place. If God exists then miracles are not only certainly possible, but one would expect them to take place as a sign of God’s presence. Miracles are not beyond logic, logical absurdities, or contradictory. No one is punting to the “God of the gaps”.

Miracles shape the crux of the Christian worldview. The Jesus Seminar presupposes the impossibility of miracles, “The contemporary religious controversy turns on whether the worldview reflected in the Bible can be carried forward into this scientific age and retained as an article of faith… the Christ of creed and dogma… can no longer command the assent of those who have seen the heavens through Galileo’s telescope.”[7] Miracles are a stumbling block for naturalists. The use of miracles as an apologetic method is known as evidential apologetics. Evidentialists will appeal to miracles to argue for theism: 1) historical evidence shows miracles occurred, 2) a theistic context is necessary for a miracle; 3) therefore, God must exist. One of the most prominent proponents of this method is Gary Habermas. This is what he calls “one step apologetics”. Classical apologists also use the resurrection and miracles as arguments for the existence of God; however, they use it in conjunction with other arguments for the existence of God to set up a theistic context prior to arguing for miracles.

This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle.” –AW Tozer

[7] R.W. Funk, R.W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, “Introduction” to The Five Gospels (New York: Macmillan, 1993), 2. For more on miracles, arguments for them, and applications see William Lane Craig’s Reasonable Faith ed. 3, a source for much of the included information.

The principle of least action states that God always chooses the most minimal means by which to produce the world. For example, if God had the choice to intervene in the world three times or five times but he would still receive identical glory for either number of interventions then God would always choose the minimal means (three interventions). I believe this principle bears truth, if anything it is quite attractive. Now how does this compare with God’s interventions via miracles? Let’s define a miracle as: A divine intervention into, or an interruption of, the regular course of the world that produces a purposeful but unusual event that would not have occurred otherwise. Miracles are not violations of laws of causality.

Are miracles thus dependent on strong actualizations or will weak actualizations be sufficient (God weakly actualizes S iff there is an S* such that God strongly actualizes [direct causation] S* and S* → S, where → is “counterfactual implication” [Let S be a state of affairs])? It seems that strong actualization is the most obvious or most appealing means by which God intervenes (miracles), but perhaps weakly actualized miracles is more in sync with the principle of least action. Perhaps at the initial conditions of the universe God constructed the world in such a way that the miracle would happen naturally given the states of affairs at the time of the miracle (including physical states and counterfactuals of human freedom). This could have been the case that a natural quantum perturbation/anomalous event occurs at the time of the resurrection, thus, it is weakly actualized. (Now this includes all historical/physical events in time preceding the resurrection but this perturbation is not strongly/directly caused. In other words, God does not introduce a new cause into the already existing cause and effect system). It would still be a miracle given the religio-historical context which surround the miracle, which God anticipated. These weakly actualized miracles that occur naturally are not mere natural events given the background information. If weakly actualized miracles are a priori defined out of existence by the definition given, then if weakly actualized miracles are plausible, perhaps we need a new working definition. This begs the question, which, for God, is the least course of action: weakly actualized miracles or strongly actualized miracles?